Pretty Green (via Cllr Kate Haigh’s Blog)

A very succinct review of the issues around the decisions to charge for green bin recycling. Kate is a City Councillor so has a great viewpoint for the detail of the proposals.

The highlight for me is that they have the great idea, but the implementation has had no thought whatsoever. How will the bin man know who has paid for what, and which of the green bins they come across has paid for the service.

In one parish Council meeting, City Cllr Andy Lewis stated that he believed that green bin recycling would rise with extra payments, though could not respond when I pointed out that surely most people would just use their black bin instead and save £36.

Lets also not forget also that this Tory Led council had complained about lack of funding from central government almost every year they have been in power, and now the very same Tories are complain that the council is too big and bloated? Did that bloating only happen on the 6th May 2010, or did they lead us there?

The City Council proposals for the massive budget savings that they are being forced to make by the Tory-led Coalition Government include the introduction of a charge for emptying green bins. Free green waste collections were introduced by the Council, along with increased general recycling and funded by grants from the County and the Labour Government. At the same time black (residual) bin collections were reduced to fortnightly. This seemed to … Read More

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7 Responses to Pretty Green (via Cllr Kate Haigh’s Blog)

My comment to Kate Haigh’s blog is ‘awaiting moderation’, and I doubt it will get past moderation, so…

‘Now this proposal suggests a charge of £36 for a service that many feel they have already paid for through Council tax’.

Ah, but never mind what others feel, do you feel you’ve paid already, or do you accept that cuts were going to have to be made, and that meant services that were ‘already paid for’ would either go or cost more?

After all, the Labour government accepted the need for cuts, they just never accepted that whatever cuts the coalition introduced were the right cuts…

Joe, I’m obviously not going to talk for Kate, but in my opinion, yes we have paid already as it is a service we receive at the moment, however, yes cuts have to be made.

My issue is that more money is going to be wasted in contracting people to pick up ‘some’ green bins using some form of identification system which will enable people to know who has paid and who hasn’t.

And that is just the practicalities, what of the green waste that will inevitably go to landfill or eventually (assuming Shire Hall push on) be incinerated?

Well, Kate is not going to speak for herself, it seems, or even clear my comment. I’m sorry to say this, but if you ever want to be the future MP for Gloucester, you’re going to have to crack the whip a bit, and persuade the local party to be a bit more voter friendly. Ditto for the Gloucester Young Labour Facebook group. Does it exist as anything more than a page, or is it another of Danny King’s internet efforts, created and then quickly forgotten?

I haven’t got a huge amount of faith in how the council run their services, either, when no matter how much they said they were ploughing into Barton & Tredworth, neither we, nor the streets behind us, ever got green waste bins, and now we will have to pay if we want them. They were trying to sell us the ‘Big Society’ idea long before Cameron, to save on the cost of keeping St. James’ Park tidy, yet, just like the Citizen, ignore our partnership. The police too. Taking my daughter to the orthodontist, I just happened to catch the 11am repeat* of the Community Link Show with Althea Lynn interviewing PC Matt Puttock, our local beat officer, about dispersal orders. No chance of us getting a heads up that he would be on, then? Good for residents, good for GFM’s viewing figures, as it struggles to raise funds.

Fingers need to be extracted all round…

*don’t mention the ‘Listen Again’ function boasted by the website, which hasn’t worked from day one, for well over a year now. I did, very politely and got banned from the Facebook page by Shaun Moore.

It’s a good thing I scrabbled my way back to this thread to note that Kate Haigh had still not accepted my comment, although she has allowed you a Trackback, Barry. I was just going to note that the party appear happy to let you be their ‘friendface’, while they avoid any risk of a public discussion. You are fast becoming the ‘Chris Maltby’ of Gloucester Labour.

The ‘good thing’ is that now I see that this is where I mentioned the GFM interview. I found out today that the local police sergeant did let our partnership know it would be happening, but the message wasn’t passed on.

Similarly, it has not been passed on that Spirit of Peace and the Friendship Café are inviting families to a Gloucester Communities Family Outing (bring your own food) at Cattle Country on March 12th, 12:30 – 3:30pm:

‘Entrance to Cattle Country will be free as the event is funded by the Community Development / Faiths in Action Fund.

The outing will take place within the indoor Slide Barn at Cattle Country and there will be space to relax and eat, in an adjoining building called The Retreat.

This event is suitable for families with children under the age of 12 and children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or responsible adult who is over 18 years of age. Places need to be booked in advance, so if you would like to attend or for further information please contact, Noel Lockyer-Stevens, Administrator for Spirit of Peace on 07504 633 985 or lockyerstevens@hotmail.com

Some low-cost transport will be available through the Friendship Café for those who need it, so please discuss this at the time of booking.’

Chris Maltby posted a few times on the Gloucester Boards about five years back to espouse both Gloucester FM and the principle of positive posting. He said he liked the forum and would keep posting, particularly about carers, but after a week or two he was gone, never to return. The point is, though, that he worked tirelessly for GFM, and still does, as a volunteer (though residing in Tuffley), effectively co-presenting ‘Family Time’ with Pastor Crawford, even having his own show later in the ‘evelin’, researching black historical figures, and when he wasn’t in the the building*, no ‘Community Link’ show would go by without at least one supportive email from Chris.

What Chris could never seem to see was all the negativity right under his nose. Banning someone from a message board for noting that the station’s ‘MOBO’ policy was not referred to in newspaper interviews (and neither is it in GFM’s Wikipedia entry, I see) was not exactly ‘positive’. Lying that the deletion of the account was due to a ‘glitch, mate’, and then deleting the new one wasn’t, either. Don’t even get me started on being removed from the GFM Facebook page for asking about the non-functional ‘Listen Again’ feature, which still isn’t working over a year later.

Chris seems to be able to ignore the most abysmal behaviour of the people he’s chosen to pledge his services to, perhaps because he’s too close to the problem. Maybe he’s not the only one who needs to take a long(er), hard look at the company he’s keeping… (see what I did there? ;))

*and speaking of the Trust Centre, their AGM is on March 10th. I will be very surprised if Shaun Moore advertises that fact on the centre’s (second free) website. The last news item, about the St James’ Park Fun Day, only went on because I dared Daz Kirby’s brother to ask Moore to put it in, and then he only posted the bare bones, no start/finish time. Just what you want from a ‘media editor’.